2016 International Report on Snow & Mountain Tourism - Overview of the key industry figures for ski resorts

April 2016 - 4 -

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if the industry fails to develop teaching methods that are better aligned with today’s consumption patterns. With the increasing development of short stays at ski resorts (the traditional ski week is

reduced to a few days, the daily trip to the slopes is reduced to an

evening) it is becoming necessary to adapt the pedagogy. It has been widely acknowledged by the industry that the first experience of

beginners is very often unpleasant and that most of them will not come again. Without proper teaching methods that will allow novice skiers to have fun on their first visit after 30 minutes on their skis, the

conversion of beginners to loyal skiers will become more and more

difficult. And not only is the market urging for teaching methods adapted to connected and zapping customers, lacking of sports culture. It is also calling for an army of ski instructors to meet with the

growth perspectives in China.

Among a lot of other information, the 2016 report features:

• An English / French / German / Chinese glossary of the technical

terms; • An article entitled 100 countries offering ski?

• Various news by Snowhunter; • Attendance chart at top world resorts;

• For the first time in the report, country reviews about Belgium, Denmark, Kosovo, Mexico, Mongolia, Pakistan, Portugal and

Tajikistan;

• Country maps.

Download the full report from website www.vanat.ch / page Publications

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2016 International Report on Snow &

Mountain Tourism

Overview of the key industry figures for ski resorts

April 2016

Extrait – Abstract – Auszug - Extrait – Abstract – Auszug -

2016 International Report on Snow & Mountain Tourism - Overview of the key industry figures for ski resorts

April 2016 - 2 -

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tt The 2016 International Report on Snow & Mountain Tourism, by Laurent Vanat, reports about the 66 countries in the world offering equipped outdoor ski areas

covered with snow.

For now 8 years, this report has become the

acknowledged reference of the ski industry worldwide. Hereafter is some general insight into the evolution of the

ski market that can be perceived based on the latest

available data presented in the 2016 issue. For a long time, in many countries, the ski industry used to measure

the evolution of the business on the basis of the revenues. When

revenues were up, one concluded that the season was good, and when they were down, one usually pointed out bad weather and snow conditions, or some time the global economy. However, what really

happened was not exactly traced. On the long range, as prices where regularly increased, the revenue showed anyway a growing trend.

Since the beginning of the 2000’s, yearly measurement of the skier visits (already used for a long time in North America) was introduced in most of the major destinations (even if unfortunately, it is still not

general practice in all markets). After a few years, it became obvious

that it was not only a matter of good or bad weather and snow conditions or good or bad economy.

Evolution of 5-years average skier visits on a 100 base for

season 2004/05

80

85

90

95

100

105

110

115

2004-05

2005-06

2006-07

2007-08

2008-09

2009-10

2010-11

2011-12

2012-13

2013-14

2014-15

UnitedStatesFrance

Austria

Switzerland

Italy

Canada

The problem was more important. It was that the population was

growing, but not the number of skiers / skier visits. This fact became

progressively obvious in many of the major markets, when the observation of the long term evolution of skier visits showed

2016 International Report on Snow & Mountain Tourism - Overview of the key industry figures for ski resorts

April 2016 - 3 -

attendance was declining. And in one major destination market after the others, the growth suddenly ceased. Skier visits became stagnant, when not declining. The season 2012/13 showed a general inflection

point in all the major markets. Even those that had benefited up to

then of client transfers from other destinations (such as European clients switching from Switzerland to Austria or France) were

inflecting. In fact, the problem is not limited only to the destination countries.

The problem is generalised to the European outbound countries that

are also feeding these destinations. It is the global Western skiers’ market that is flattening, although this is not reflected in the worldwide number of skiers, which is growing thanks to developing

markets such as China. However, in these developing markets, the ski

consumption per skier is still much lower than it used to be on traditional markets, resulting into a global stagnant attendance figure.

Ski market is moved by numerous drivers. It is a multi-factor equation and we still do not monitor clearly all parameters and variables.

Beside the long-dated weather and snow conditions factors, there are

a number of others. The western demographic evolution is a major issue. Such are also the increased worldwide competition in holiday and leisure activities and the retention and learning issues.

The latest may be the most widely spread problem that the industry will have to face in the decade. It does not only affect mature markets that struggle to renew their customer base, but also developing

markets such as China that risk to vaccinate candidates against skiing